The Road Not Taken
by nicky69
Summary: AU. One possible outcome had Nick been unable to overcome the babysitter ordeal in his past. AN and Warning: Features the death of a canon/major character, suicide, angst. Beted by the lovely, elmyraemilie. Any mistakes you find are my own.


**Warning: Suicide, death of a canon/major character, angst. This story should be seen an neither an endorsment nor condemnation of suicide.**

"Albert."

With an accompanying nod of acknowledgement, Gil Grissom entered the cool, sombre room that was the coroner's domain. In his hand he held a copy of the meagre file that corresponded with his current case, a case related to the as yet unidentified body that lay on the autopsy table.

"So what can you tell about our John Doe? Do we have a positive COD yet?"

Accustomed as he was to Grissom's sometimes rather brusque manner, Doc Robbins smiled wryly and pushed himself to his feet, he moved to stand beside Gil. In the quiet room the soft thump of his crutch, as the rubber tip hit the pristine floor, seemed overloud and intrusive. For a moment they simply stared at the partially covered remains before them, each of them in silent contemplation. Then it was back to business.

"What we have here is a caucasian male in his early to late thirties, who before his demise was in relatively good health. There are no apparent outward signs of injury, the subject is well nourished, if a little on the thin side, and does not appear to be the victim of any kind of assault. My first thought was that perhaps he had suffered an aneurysm or similar event that resulted in death, however, on closer inspection of the body I discovered these."

Robbins lifted the sheet that covered the lower extremities of the corpse, exposing pallid flesh. One latex covered hand pointed towards the thigh area and Gil leant in a little closer to see what he had discovered. On the upper thigh a multitude of slim white scars about three inches in length were clearly visible. To someone in his line of work their presence spoke volumes, and was a lasting testament to one man's suffering, endurance and shame.

"He was a cutter?"

There was no condemnation in Gil's tone, only an abstract professional curiosity, and he leant in again to gain a closer view of the scars.

"Yes," said Robbins. "I found similar scarring on his other thigh, upper arms and stomach. Some of the scars are decades old, others more recent, say within the past six months."

Once Grissom had finished his inspection, Doc Robbins replaced the sheet, re-covering the scars in an effort to afford the deceased some small measure of dignity.

"I also found these."

Robbins moved to the head of the table and lifted one lax hand, turning it so that the wrist was facing outwards. Gil followed in his footsteps, seeking a closer inspection, but he was sadly confident of what he would find; he was not mistaken. Blending in with ashen skin the scars were almost indiscernible. Faded with age they seemed almost innocuous, but their placement and orientation showed that their owner had been serious in his desire to die. Gil's gaze rose to meet steadily with Al's.

"When I saw those," Robbins said, "I decided to send his blood work out for a full tox screen. I'm still waiting on the results, but considering the lack of conflicting evidence, I'm going to make a tentative preliminary ruling of suicide."

Gil didn't seem to be surprised by his conclusions, just intensely saddened.

"Did you send his prints to Wendy?"

It would be nice to have a name, an identity to go with the face. It wasn't simply that it was his job to identify the victim; it always seemed wrong to him that what was once a living, feeling human being could be reduced to nothing more than an anonymous number in a cold, impersonal data base.

Whatever course this unfortunate man's life had taken he deserved the courtesy of a name; his family, if he had one, deserved to know of his passing, painful as that knowledge would be. In Gil's eyes he was more than just a collection of scars and circumstances, more than a statistic and a file on his desk.

They all were; the lost ones, the forgotten, the unclaimed dead.

In the end it didn't matter to him if they were rich or poor, innocent or deserving of their fate, though he was honest enough with himself to admit that children held a special place in his heart. What it came down to is that they could no longer speak for themselves; it was his duty to give them a voice, an identity. So often neglected in life, in death they finally found an advocate. It is a bitter irony, one of which Gil was all too aware.

"Sure did, sent them up with David an hour or so ago. Maybe you'll get lucky and get a hit."

"Maybe," was Gil's only answer as he turned to leave. "Thanks, Al."

As the door swung shut behind him, he heard the sound of a sheet being raised, and a few sorrowful words.

"Damn shame. What a waste."

Gil couldn't agree more.

OXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

"Dr. Grissom, please come to reception, you have a visitor at the front desk."

A summons over the PA system wasn't unusual in the fluid working environment of the lab, so Gil was unconcerned at the call. Yet it was with no small amount of curiosity that he approached the large desk that was the first point of contact for visitors.

"Wendy?"

Gil's raised eyebrow and quizzical expression were all the cues the young woman needed. She pointed quickly to the seating area in the corner of the room where two men sat rigidly in the uncomfortable hard backed chairs, before turning to answer the perpetually ringing telephone on her desk.

"Hello, crime lab…"

Gil tuned her out, his attention focused on the strangers; he walked over to greet them.

"Dr. Grissom?"

The older of the two men spoke first while both he and his companion rose to their feet. At Gil's affirmative nod he held out his hand for Grissom to shake; his grasp was firm, his gaze steady if a little weary.

"My name is William Stokes, this…" he nodded to the man at his side, "is my son, Andrew."

But of course, Gil knew who they were now. One only need look at Andrew--the resemblance was almost startling. Gil couldn't help but wonder fleetingly if that similarity was now a blessing to his parents or a curse. Surely to have such a constant visual reminder of what had been lost must be a special kind of hell all its own.

"Of course, you're here about your son, Nick. I'm so sorry for your loss."

Gil watched as grief flickered briefly through solemn brown eyes at his words.

"Is there anything I can do for you today?"

"Yes." Now resolve flashed in those same eyes, returning a spark of life to them.

"You can tell me how my son died."

OXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

"Please, take a seat." Gil gestured to the two chairs in front of his desk and waited for the two gentlemen to be seated before he himself took his seat.

"Mr. Stokes, I'm not sure what it is exactly that you want to know. Didn't the police inform you of the circumstances surrounding your son's death?"

Gil hoped that someone hadn't screwed up the notification and caused undue suffering for this unfortunate family. Certainly LVPD and the lab didn't need any more bad publicity or another lawsuit following the Demetrius James case.

Gil's office was silent and it was into that unforgiving hush that the younger Stokes ventured his first words. Gil's eyes slid to his eerily familiar face.

"Dr. Grissom, may I be frank with you?"

It was obviously a rhetorical question, as he plunged onwards without waiting for Gil to answer. His words were softened by a gentle Texas accent, yet the gravity of his statement was clear.

"Both my father and I are law enforcement professionals," Gil's eyes widened a little at the news but otherwise he remained quiet.

"I'm a detective with the Dallas PD and my father is a Texas Supreme Court Judge."

Gil acknowledged the new information with a slight nod in the judge's direction. "Your Honour," he said, but was otherwise still.

Cutting to the chase, the younger Stokes continued.

"I'm not trying to impress you Dr. Grissom, it's just that with our backgrounds we both know when we aren't being told the entire truth and I need to know…we both need to know what really happened to Nick."

Gil studied the men before him; his practised eye took in their air of pensive determination and bitter resolve. He could only imagine what it must have cost them emotionally to control their grief, but he recognized their need for honesty and knowledge. In their place he knew that he would feel the same.

"What were you told about the manner of your son's death?"

"J.P….the local sheriff told us that there had been an accident and that Nicky had passed away here in Vegas. He didn't give us any details and to be honest, at the time I didn't want any. All I knew was that my boy…"

Here for the first time since they met the Judge's iron control slipped, his voice hesitant and thick with unmanageable pain. Gil caught a glimpse of the turmoil and naked grief that he was valiantly trying to suppress and he felt sick to his stomach knowing that the information that he was about to disclose would only add to their burden.

"…my boy was gone."

The Judges eyes were fever bright as he held Grissom's gaze, tears held at bay by sheer strength of will and Gil wondered, almost selfishly, what it would have been like to have met this man under better circumstances.

Feeling slightly ashamed of his egoistic thoughts, he withdrew from the sharp scrutiny of that stare and sought the younger Stokes' face. That refuge, however, was short lived. With his brown eyes and handsome features, Andrew Stokes was his brother come to life, or so was Gil's first impression.

However, as he studied Andrew Stokes he noticed subtle differences. Andrew's face was not as thin as his brother's; his hair, clean and neatly cropped was the antithesis of Nick's wild mop. However, perhaps most telling of all were the laughter lines, deeply imbedded around his mouth and eyes, the sign of a man who loved life. Gil remembered the ruin of Nick's body and doubted that Nick Stokes ever experienced that kind of joy. Perhaps they were not so similar after all.

"Your Honour. Detective Stokes. I'm sorry there's no easy way to say it. Nick took his own life."

Gil waited for the rebuttal, the denial that was the common reaction to the news that a loved one had committed suicide. Disbelief, horror and anger were usually not far behind. Instead when he looked at the two men before him, he saw painful resignation and acceptance. In their eyes he saw the shadows of long held sorrow and hope unfulfilled.

"I knew it… I think I knew it the moment J.P. showed up on my doorstep. Twenty five years I've known the man and it was the first time that he wouldn't…couldn't meet my eye. I guess he thought that he was doing the right thing, trying to spare us the extra pain of knowing that our Nicky took what some say is a coward's way out."

"Mr. Stokes…"

"Do you believe that, Mr. Grissom? Is it a coward's way out?"

Intense brown eyes focused on Gil and he felt pierced to the heart by their keen regard. He took his time before he answered. He's asked himself that same question on many occasions. With the horrors he'd seen and the injustice that he'd witnessed, he'd asked himself if there was ever justification for ending one's own life.

When, he wondered, does death begin to have more to recommend it than living? Why does the pain inside consume some and not others? When all hope seems lost, was it easy to say goodbye to life? When you got right down to it, how much courage did it take to choose dying over living? What strength of character was required to follow through once the choice was made? Which was the lesser of two evils? Always he came back to the same answer.

"No, sir, I don't believe it's a coward's way out."

Gil weighed his next words carefully.

"I suppose it's all a matter of perspective. How do you define courage and strength? How do you place a value on a life, or for that matter a death? Who are we to discriminate an act of valour from one of cowardice? Who are we to judge?"

"Who indeed?"

The Judges voice is tinged with a bitter irony, but the overwhelming sadness in his tone and expression was achingly obvious. Here was a man bereft and the depth of his grief was humbling to witness.

"I can't say that I understand the forces that drive a person to such an act, sir," Gil says. "I certainly don't condone it; however, I can't believe that anyone makes the choice frivolously or easily. Those of us who are left behind can only learn to live with the consequences of their actions and hope that in death they at last find what was so lacking in their lives.

"And what is that, Mr Grissom?"

"Who can say, sir? Who can truly know what lies at the heart of so troubled a soul? In my own heart I hope that they finally know peace."

"Peace…"

In the calm of Gil's office, seemingly divorced from the rest of the world, William Stokes tone was wistful, almost hopeful and for the first time since he met the man, Gil saw something other than grief in his eyes.

"If there was ever a soul on God's green earth who deserved to find some peace it was my Nick. A kinder, sweeter boy you could never hope to meet, Mr. Grissom, but he was… troubled."

Gil's eyes flickered between father and son, tacitly acknowledging their admission; they knew about the cutting and the previous suicide attempt. That explained the resignation that he saw on their faces when he first told them the real cause of death.

The older Stokes carried on with his reminisces, lost in a past that he was unable to change, oblivious to Gil's new found understanding.

"He was such a happy child, our youngest you know, but he was never spoiled."

Here an indulgent smile crept onto the Judges face as sweet memory warmed his tired and care worn features. As he watched the light of other days, briefly chase some of the grief from the other man's face, Gil's heart ached anew, saddened by the magnitude of their loss and sobered by the fleeting transience of life.

"Well, maybe just a little spoiled, but he is…was… the baby of the family after all. Do you have children, Mr. Grissom?"

The abrupt change of focus caught Gil off guard momentarily, but he rallied quickly.

"No, sir. I don't. I guess I never found that special someone who made me want to settle down."

He wondered briefly why was it that he felt comfortable sharing that kind of information with two virtual strangers, when he shared so little of himself with those that he saw on a daily basis, people whom he considered colleagues, even friends. But the answer when it presented itself was frightening in its fundamental purity.

It seemed that by virtue of being privy to the most intimate aspects of Nick's life and death, he, Gil Grissom, had been taken into the Stokes family confidence. They had shared with him their greatest sorrow. How could he in good conscience deny them even that tiny bit of information about himself?

"That's a pity, Mr. Grissom. It's in our children that we find our ultimate joy and happiness. From the moment they're born you spend every waking minute worrying about them, fussing over them, trying to keep them safe. I failed in that duty…I wasn't there when my boy needed me."

"There was some trouble when Nick was a child. We--his mother and I made a huge mistake. We trusted the wrong person and our boy paid for it with not only his innocence, but ultimately his life. He was never the same after that night, none of us where. It shames me to say it but I think that somehow I blamed him for what happened, incredible as that seems now, and he knew it. All I know is that after that night he never looked to me for love or comfort again and proud fool that I was, I never offered it. Why didn't I offer it?"

The judge's jaw was tight with tension; tears long denied threatened to finally burst free from their prison of ages. Grief turned to rage and with unexpected violence his hand struck out, his open palm slamming onto Grissom's desk. The sound of the impact rolled over them, shocking in its power. Into the awkward silence that followed, his words fell like acid; bitter, caustic, and ultimately impotent.

"Damn it, a man shouldn't have to bury his child!"

As quickly as it appeared the rage fled, leaving in its wake is a sorrow so sharp in its intensity that it threatened to swallow him whole. When the judge spoke again his voice was a mere whisper, broken and filled with defeat.

"Damn it, a man shouldn't have to bury his child."

Uncertain how to answer, knowing that generic platitudes would bring no comfort under these circumstances, Gil remained silent. In the face of such overwhelming emotion he felt lost and unsure; uncomfortable with the intimacy of the moment. Nothing he could say or do could change he fact that Nick Stokes was dead. He couldn't help him; but perhaps he could help his family.

"No, sir, you shouldn't. But Mr. Stokes, there is one last thing that you can do for your son."

In the silence that followed, Gil looked into two pairs of anguished brown eyes, eyes that questioned and yearned for some kind of absolution. He offered all that he could.

"Take him home, sir."

Understanding, relief, sadness and love stare back at Gil. The emotional storm had passed, leaving behind some semblance of peace. Perhaps, now that they knew the truth, Nick Stokes' family would finally be able to find some rest too; Gil hoped so.

There was nothing more to say, They stood and Gil walked over to open the door for them.

After his son had exited the room, William Stokes paused in the open doorway. Looking back he seemed to see, for the first time, the unconventional backdrop that was Gil's office. His eyes roamed, taking in everything from the multiple tanks that contained Gil's insect farm to the irradiated pig foetus in its jar.

"Our Pancho always had a curious mind and a generous soul, Mr. Grissom, even after--well even after her. I like to think that if things had been different…"

William Stokes swallowed hard and for a second a wistful smile flitted across his features. His eyes met Gil's one last time.

"I think Nick would have liked you, Mr Grissom. I wish you could have known him." He nodded a final farewell and then was gone.

Gil stood in with his hand on the door, thinking about the man lying in the morgue. Nick's body bore the physical scars of the cruel betrayal of his trust; wounds self inflicted in a fruitless attempt to regain control of his life and his soul. It was a battle he had finally lost and Gil mourned his passing as he mourned all the lost souls who found their way into his life.

Still, life carried on.

With one hand Gil returned the case-file for Nick Stokes to his desk drawer, and with the other, he reached for the blood results for his current case; he didn't open it. As he pushed the drawer closed he found himself speaking into his empty office.

"I think I would have liked him too."


End file.
